Easter Bank Holiday weekend, and I’ve only managed one short fishing trip. Not to worry.

So, Sunday evening, and a run up to Farletonview for a shot on their 3 hour sport ticket, a snip at 6 quid. With the settled and mild weather we’d been having and had been promised for Sunday, too, I was looking forward to some hot buzzer fishing and some surface action to emerger to round-off. The weather turned on me a bit, though, and despite starting the day out in shorts (first outing for my legs this year, I believe), which was lovely in the shelter of our garden and for a stroll to the swings (with the kids!) in Torrisholme village, I was to end it with frozen fingers, and being very pleased with myself for having the wisdom to take extra layers and a jumper to the lake with me.

The problem, temperature-wise, was the wind-chill, and up under the shadow of Ingleborough at Farleton, the wind was strong and thin. This made casting awkward at best and the couple of anglers already there when I arrived at just after 6pm were huddled in the SW corner, which had a little shelter. I headed for the NW corner and tackled up with a 2 fly team; a gold-head hare’s ear on the point and a red Daiwl Bach on the dropper. I began fishing along the northern shore, struggling with the wind swirling over my right-shoulder and trying to cover the water from 90 degrees round to the shallow margins, trying a mixture of retrieves from ’static’, through various figure-of-eights to fairly quick pulls. Cover the available water and move on a few paces.

After a couple of moves along, I got a take. This wasn’t a big fish by any means, and once it came within view I saw it was a silver fish of some sort which had taken the dropper. Cool! It looked like a decent size for a Roach, but I didn’t get a proper look at it before it came adrift, and it might even have been a skimmer - it looked very deep for a Roach. Anyway, I may never know for sure, but I was doing something right at least, and pushed on (after trying a few more casts into the same area to see if I could contact another of the shoal, of course).

Almost to the other corner now, and I’ve changed to an olive buzzer on the point, when a vicious take strips yards of line from the coils at my feet before I really get a grip on the situation. Wow, this fish has some go - but, after a while I see it and it’s not so big… I’m on the reel now, and it keeps running and taking line against the drag, and I can’t do a thing with it. I begin to get a sneaking suspicion, and when I do manage to get it closer in, I realise the suspicion is well-founded. The fish is either foul hooked, or the leader has somehow become entangled around its tail. I eventually get a completely average-size Farleton rainbow (about 2 1/4 - 2 1/2 lbs) into the net, with the size 16 olive buzzer firmly buried in the root of its tail. Lucky I fish barbless, or I would have had to chop its tail off altogether (possibly - I might just have snipped the fly, but it could have gone either way).

Now deep in the NE corner, and there seem to be a few fish around, and I hit into a couple on various flies. I try snatchers and wickhams spiders at this point, but it’s not clear which are the successful flies, since all of the fish get away after running around a bit and leaping clear of the water several times.

Next, as I’m running out of time, and there are some fish topping here and there, every now and then, I try some emergers, spending some time on my fave fly, the shipman’s, and some time with cdc shuttlecock buzzers. Weirdly, although there were clearly fish about, buzzers about, and fish eating those buzzers in/on the surface, and I cast to rising fish, I didn’t get a single offer at the surface. I tried several sizes and colours, and kept degreasing, but not a single rise. Ho hum.

Then I went to the chippy.

A good fun 3 hours though, and something I’m sure to repeat frequently over the next few months, I expect. The other thing I did for this session was try out my pared-down fishing pack in full for the first time. The fishing pack is a bum-bag, a rod and a net. In the bum bag is my (home-made) lanyard loaded with the stuff I usually have dangling off my vest, a reel and a few odds and sods like some spare spools of leader material and my usual pocket junk (fuller’s earth mix, mucilin, some indicators etc), my dry-fly box and camera. The idea is that, especially over the summer when clothing is less of an issue, the pack can stay in the car for those impromptu and shorter sessions. It’s just a lot quicker and less cumbersome than having bags and vests and all that shit.

I’ll post some more details and some pictures at a later date.

@22:00:36 under Fishing